Board of Directors

Nicole LeBlanc, Board of Directors

Nicole LeBlanc

Nicole LeBlanc has a keen ability and interest in public policy and excels at communicating the needs of people with developmental disabilities to public officials. In December of 2020, she started working as the Self Advocate Advisor with TASH on the AOD Disability Employment TA Center, where she researches material on employment and self advocacy, recruits focus group members, and drafts blogs and social media posts.

Ever since the day Nicole first stepped foot in Washington, D.C. with her mentor Chester Finn, she knew she wanted to live in the political universe. Nicole has presented or facilitated webinars and video blogs on the topics of healthcare, autism, presuming competence, self-managed services, voter access, COVID-19, the dignity of risk, and employment of people with disabilities. She has worked with organizations including Green Mountain Self-Advocates, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, and the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In the summer of 2019, Nicole won the David Joyce Advocate of the Year award for outstanding policy advocacy on Capitol Hill.

In 2017, Nicole was a Public Policy Fellow at Disability Belongs™, and has spoken at several Disability Belongs™ events since then. In 2022, Nicole was the first-ever recipient of the organization’s Steve Bartlett Award, which recognizes and honors an individual in the private or public sector who demonstrates a strong commitment to using the political system to advance public policy in support of people with disabilities.

Nicole is a natural leader chosen by her peers due to her unwavering commitment to speaking the truth to power. Nicole is one who is not willing to shy away from taking on big challenges and new adventures. Her motto is “control your own destiny or someone else will.” Her hobbies are following politics, ice skating, reading, going to conferences, hiking, exercising at the gym, traveling, hanging out with her best friends and alternative medicine.

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Tamala Patrice Scott, Board of Directors

Tamala Patrice Scott

Tamala Patrice Scott brings more that 17 years of development and fundraising experience across a variety of non-profit organizations. As a Philadelphia native, Tamala relocated to Virginia for a change in scenery and to start her career where she was introduced to the field of development and loved it.

Over the course of Tamala’s career, she has led fundraising efforts to raise millions of dollars for non-profit organizations such as the United Negro College Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, The Arc of the US and Childhelp, Inc., just to name a few. Tamala’s years of development experience include working with corporate and family foundations, corporations, major donors, board members, sponsors and managing special events.

Tamala is excited to join the Disability Belongs™ board and looks forward to helping to raise awareness and visibility for this wonderful organization.

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Bill Gaventa, Board of Directors

Bill Gaventa is an author, speaker, trainer, and consultant primarily in the arena of faith and disability. He is the founder and Director Emeritus of the Summer Institute of Theology and Disability and the current Director of the National Collaborative on Faith and Disability. He was the Director of Community and Congregational Supports at the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities in New Jersey from 1995-2013. His primary areas of experience and expertise include spiritual and faith-based supports with people with disabilities, training for clergy, seminarians, and community services staff, aging, end of life/grief issues in intellectual and developmental disabilities, cultural competence, and community building. He served as the President of American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities from 2016-2017. He was Editor of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health for 14 years, and is author of Spirituality and Disability: Recovering Wholeness published by Baylor University Press in 2018.

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Daniel Goldsmith, Board of Directors

Daniel (Dani) Goldsmith leads 5 Why Consultants. He has previously sold four companies that he co-founded, led, and grew to be 17 times larger than when he founded them to large private equity firms. He has more than 20 years of experience working in the financial services, manufacturing industry, business strategy, corporate governance, finance, tax, and insurance sectors with both Fortune 500 and start up high growth firms.

Dani is the son of a public health medical doctor that spent a career advocating for the rights of those less fortunate. Dani has served on the Chicago Board of Meals on Wheels and various school boards. He is a member of Town’s Council Disability Rights Committee. He co-founded the Los Angeles US Soccer Federation Council and works on food scarcity issues. He is bilingual in Spanish and English.

Dani holds a BS, MBA from DePaul University as well as a CMA and Executive MBA from Harvard University.

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Randall Duchesneau, Board of Directors

Randall Duchesneau

Randall Duchesneau is a consultant that provides clients with real estate investment and transactional advisory services. He also is a founding member of the United Spinal Association Greater Philadelphia Chapter, and is a C5-C6 quadriplegic from a spinal cord injury during gymnastics.

Duchesneau has an undergraduate degree from Cornell, a Masters of Public Health from Yale, and has advocated for legislation on behalf of disability organizations. He has worked at General Electric and the Department of Health and Human Services, and is also the former Director of the National Leadership Program at Disability Belongs™. He has interviewed United States presidential candidates, governors and senators on disability employment policy.

Duchesneau also is an active mentor for individuals living with spinal cord injury and has worked with engineers to design and develop medical devices and assistive technology.

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Ila Eckhoff, Board of Directors

Ila Eckhoff

Ila Eckhoff, CPA, Managing Director, is a member of BlackRock’s Business Operations as part of Investment Operations. She is responsible for leading BlackRock’s Industry and Counterparty Management strategy and TSS Services for Aladdin clients. Ms. Eckhoff serves on a number of committees, including the Business Operations and Technology Leadership Committees, and Government Relations Steering Committee. She is also a leader of Blackrock’s ABN- Ability Network.

Ms. Eckhoff has had several roles at Blackrock, most recently managing the Market Initiatives team coordinating operational initiatives associated with meeting Dodd Frank and EMIR commitments for Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives working alongside the market structure, portfolio management, technology, and legal teams. Prior to that, Ms. Eckhoff managed BlackRock’s US Derivative Operations and Trading Operations Groups where she was responsible for collateral management and trade confirmation across fixed income and equity, swap payments and OTC legal confirmations. In addition, she has worked to enhance the firm’s system capabilities and develop the operations infrastructure for derivatives. Ms. Eckhoff has also developed and implemented collateral and swap payment processes and procedures for alternative products at the firm. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2000, Ms. Eckhoff managed the New York Collateral teams at both Barclays Capital and Credit Lyonnais, handling all interest rate, FX and equity derivatives. In this role, she was responsible for coordinating global collateral management for all US clients working with legal, tax and regulatory reporting. At Credit Lyonnais, she also managed the Accounting Policy Group where she developed and implemented the Bank’s procedures on collateralized derivative trading.

Ms. Eckhoff is co-chair of SIFMA/AMF Derivative Operations Committee, a member of the ISDA Collateral and Credit Steering Committees and a member of the SIFMA AMG Committee. She is also a member of MarkitServ’s Advisory Committee and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and Disability Belongs™ Boards of Directors. Ms. Eckhoff earned a BA degree in economics from Brandeis University and an MBA degree in Accounting from Baruch College.

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Ollie Cantos, Board of Directors – Chair Emeritus

Ollie Cantos

Ollie Cantos is Chair Emeritus of Disability Belongs’s Board of Directors. Cantos has been active in the civil rights arena since 1990.  He is Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, Attorney Mentor for the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, and Member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Past positions include Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Disability Rights Legal Center, General Counsel and Director of Programs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush. Prior leadership posts include Vice Chair of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Vice President of the Virginia Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Legal Officer for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Vice President of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chairman of the Board for Scholarships for Eagles, President of the California Association of Blind Students and the National Association of Blind Students, and member of the boards of directors of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, the Blind Children’s Center, Community Lodgings, the California Association to Promote the Use of Braille, the National Federation of the Blind of California, Loyola Marymount University Alumni Association, and Loyola Law School Alumni Association.

But Ollie is most grateful for his adoption of three blind triplet boys – Leo, Nick, and Steven.  Their compelling story has been told by National Public Radio, PEOPLE Magazine, The Washingtonian Magazine, USA Today, and videos that went viral on NowThis.com, HeartThreads.com, and others. In addition to local media coverage, they were featured as Persons of the Week on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir In December 2017 for attaining the coveted rank of Eagle Scout as part of Boy Scouts of America. Their story has now reached a grand total of more than 53 million views.

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Eleanor Clift, Board of Directors

Eleanor Clift

Eleanor Clift is a columnist for the Daily Beast, an online publication where she writes about politics and culture. She previously worked for Newsweek, where she covered a variety of beats and was a key member of the magazine’s election team.

Her cover story for Newsweek about the television show, Mad Men, won acclaim for capturing the era when women were relegated to the secretarial pool.

Clift is perhaps best known as a panelist on the syndicated talk show, “The McLaughlin Group,” which returned to public television in 2020 after a hiatus following the death of host and creator, John McLaughlin.

She has appeared as herself in several movies, including “Dave,” “Independence Day,” “Murder at 1600,” and the CBS show, “Murphy Brown.”

She has authored or co-authored several books, including, “Selecting a President,” “Founding Sisters and the 19th Amendment,” “Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death and Politics,” “Madam President: Blazing the Leadership Trail,” and “War Without Bloodshed: The Art of Politics.”

Clift lives in Washington, D.C., where she is on the advisory council of the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Boards of the American News Women’s Club and the Board of Governor’s of the National Hospice Foundation.

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Sneha Dave, Board of Directors

Sneha Dave

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